


Blame the Sun as the Cause of the Shadows on the Wall

by theshipsfirstmate



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M, bc sharks, s5 oliver introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-25
Updated: 2016-10-25
Packaged: 2018-08-24 16:29:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8379382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theshipsfirstmate/pseuds/theshipsfirstmate
Summary: S5 Oliver introspection. Because sharks have to keep moving, but they can swim in circles. "It’s not until he’s training the new team that his memories of Russia return in full force, something about the carelessness of young recruits that triggers a Pavlovian response where he smells gunpowder and blood every time the bell rings."





	

_(A/N: Yeah, I got a fic idea from the stupid-ass shark metaphor. It’s probably weird. I”M SORRY OK.)  
_

_Title paraphrased from “[Season of the Shark](http://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DAqLwCSv6F7Q&t=ZWM5NzM1YmEwZDUxODQ0OTZmODhlZWJkZGNlNDE3MmUxY2ZhMTI0OCwwTE52MkdjOA%3D%3D&b=t%3AiAw4tJIAalN1OvhWtUFPsQ&m=1)” by Yo La Tengo. Get it?_

**Blame the Sun as the Cause of the Shadows on the Wall**

Oliver Queen never thought of himself as a shark.

Growing up, he never thought of himself as much of anything besides a Queen. He never had to be. He was a name, a legacy, and he didn’t have to become more until he washed ashore in the South Pacific with a few days worth of rations and his father’s corpse in tow.

On Lian Yu, he became a refugee, a prisoner, a slave, a survivor, a fighter, a hunter, a killer. Ultimately, an archer.

Then he came home and became someone else.

In the years since his return – _a vigilante, a teammate, a guardian, a murderer_ –  he’s even heard it said that he’s a hero, but he’s never allowed himself to reach that far. Not even when Felicity would level him with a passionate stare that was tinted around the edges by frustrated heartbreak. _“You are,”_ she would insist, heaps of faith despite how little he had earned. He would change the subject.

Oliver’s not a hero, and he never was a shark, not even when they wanted him to be.

It’s not until he’s training the new team that his memories of Russia return in full force, something about the carelessness of young recruits that triggers a Pavlovian response where he smells gunpowder and blood every time the bell rings. Felicity’s surprise when he speaks about the Bratva – the reminder that, despite everything, she still doesn’t know him in totality –  is a fleeting crack in the mostly impenetrable facade that she wears around him these days. She’s someone else too, now. It’s not just who she is to him, he thinks, but who she might be to someone else.

_A shark that does not swim, drowns._

It’s a good metaphor, a positive one at face value. He comes across it a few times after leaving Russia; it sounds kind of clumsy and obvious outside of the mother tongue. Oliver remembers hearing a variation on it once in a children’s movie, nearly choking on his popcorn as John Jr. forced him and Felicity to watch his favorite Disney film, something about a clownfish, for the third time in a six-hour babysitting session.

It’s a good metaphor for a soldier, too, he knows that to be true. Keep moving forward, always forward. Swim or drown. Carry on or start digging your grave.

The thing about sharks, though, is that they have to keep moving, but they can swim in circles. The path doesn’t have to be linear, the passage of time doesn’t have to mean progress or evolution. Sometimes, it’s just movement without meaning, just swimming for your life.

The men of the Bratva, they truly were sharks, sharp-tongued and lethal, but constantly circling. The same powerful families, the same power grabs and illicit opportunities for profit, chum in the water.

Oliver didn’t make a very good shark then, but he uses their lessons now to train his team and their metaphor as a last resort, because Quentin Lance is drowning with his feet on land. Oliver starts calling his deputy mayor for meetings at City Hall during all hours of the day and night, just to make sure he’s staying on the straight and narrow. After a while, it starts to work, and he has more good days than bad, powering through policy instead of slurring sad stories about love and loss. It’s progress, however imperfect.

 _“We were almost family,”_ Lance reminds him on one of the bad nights. _“But now Donna’s back in Vegas and Felicity, well, she’s with–”_

He stops just short, and Oliver tells himself over and over again that it doesn’t matter. That he’s happy if she is. That Felicity deserves better than a vigilante, a killer, a shark. He’s always known that was true. Maybe now is the time to accept it.

And maybe now is the time to be a shark, to keep moving. He tries. But as everything else in his life pushes forward – _a mayor, a difference maker, a protector, a leader_ – she is the one thing he can’t help but double back on, again and again. Time heals all wounds, but it hasn’t diminished what he feels for her in the slightest.

Felicity Smoak is more than anything he’s ever wanted and far more than he’s ever deserved. There’s no one else for him. There never will be. And of all the things that he is, of all the multitudes that exist within his complicated persona, he is first and foremost a man in love with her.

If he’s a shark now, if this is the life he gets, he’ll settle for circling, swimming loops around her just to stay alive.


End file.
